"Liverpool Declaration": MEDIA ART NEEDS GLOBAL NETWORKED ORGANISATION & SUPPORT
International Declaration
http://idw-online.de/de/news451610


State of Affairs

Digital technology has fundamentally changed the way art is made. Over the last forty years, Media Art has become a significant part of our networked information society. Although there are well-attended international festivals, collaborative research projects, exhibitions and database documentation resources, Media Art research is still marginal in universities, museums and archives. It remains largely under-resourced in our core cultural institutions.

As a result of rapid changes in technology, many major works made even
10 years ago can no longer be shown or are disappearing without a trace.
If this situation is not addressed, we face losing an art form that is a central part of our post-industrial digital culture. To date, systematic global preservation and documentation campaigns do not exist.
Many important online documentation and research projects are also disappearing from the web. As they falter, we risk losing their valuable material forever. Contemporary scientific research relies on access to shared data. The same is true of the Arts and Humanities, which lack a concerted international policy for sustainability and support of the digital heritage, such as exists partly in the natural sciences.

Several science disciplines have developed large collective projects to address the challenges and opportunities of our time by way of networked digital environments, based on a sustainable and international support structure. International Media Art research needs similar global organisation and collaboration.

Goals

a.) Establish international and sustainable funding structures Therefore it is essential to establish international and sustainable funding structures that can guarantee the persistence of these valuable resources, and to make use of networked collaboration to archive key data in a cooperative process of knowledge transfer between artists, institutions and researchers internationally. While many nations are devoting funds for interdisciplinary e-research, we urgently need global networked collaboration in Media Art research.
Such an international structure/alliance needs the actively supported membership of media art organisations, archives and individuals. It should be supported with adequate funding and expertise from the existing networks of funding agencies, archives, online initiatives and research institutions.

b.) Supporting an International Association/Institution for Shared Data We urgently need global networked collaboration in Media Art research across the aforementioned networks. We need as many bridges into society as possible: archives, conferences, text repositories, collective database documentation, and preservation.

This alliance will promote collaboration and advocate the sustainability, understanding and appreciation of media art heritage
by:
• Recognizing and building upon existing knowledge and resources
• Providing and fostering channels of communication
• Enabling the international research community to
create/upload/access data to be shared.
• Encouraging peer exchange and addressing the new challenges of
Media Art
• Developing scientific technologies for documentation and
preservation of Media Art
• Providing inspiration and resources for curators, artists,
scholars, educators and audiences
• Supporting the Media Art History network, its conference series,
text repositories and scientific publications
• Promotion of new ways of understanding media art, science,
technology and its histories
Only when we develop systematic strategies to address these challenges will we be able to fulfill the task that digital culture and its research demands of us in the 21st Century.

Signing Instructions
Governments, universities, research institutions, researchers, artists, academics, funding agencies, foundations, libraries, museums, archives, learned societies and professional associations who share the vision expressed in this Declaration are invited to join the signatories that have already signed the Declaration. To add your signature go to
www.mediaarthistory.org

Chair. Prof. Dr. Sean CUBITT, Winchester School of Art, Southampton, UK Chair. Prof. Dr. Oliver GRAU, Image Science, Danube University Krems, Austria Chair. Prof. Dr. Ross HARLEY, COFA, University of New South Wales, Sydney, Australia Prof. Dr. Christiane PAUL,The New School, New York, USA Prof. Dr. Diana DOMINGUES, Universidade de Brasília, Brazil Prof. Lanfranco ACETI, Goldsmiths and Sabanci University, UK / Turkey Prof. Dr. Frieder NAKE, University of Bremen, Germany Prof. Dr. h.c. Peter WEIBEL, Chairman and CEO ZKM | Center for Art and Media Karlsruhe Prof. Dr. Roy ASCOTT, University of Plymouth, UK Dr. Martin WARNKE, Leuphana University, Germany Prof. Mike STUBBS, Director of FACT Liverpool, UK Dr. Andreas BROECKMANN, Director of the Leuphana Arts Program, Germany Chair. Prof. Jeffrey SHAW, City University Hong Kong School of Creative Media Prof. Eduardo KAC, Arts Institute Chicago Prof. Dr. Christa SOMMERER, Professor for Interface Culture, University of Art and Design Linz, Austria Prof. Dr. Peter MATUSSEK, Universität Siegen, Deutschland Prof. Dr. Laurent MIGNONNEAU, Professor for Interface Culture, University of Art and Design Linz, Austria Winnie FU, Curator and Chairperson of Microwave International New Media Arts Festival, Hong Kong Prof. Stephen PARTRIDGE, Duncan of Jordanstone College of Art and Design, University of Dundee, UK Prof. Dr. Paul THOMAS, COFA, University of New South Wales, Sydney, Australia Prof. em. Itsuo SAKANE, Institute of Advanced Media Arts and Sciences, Tokyo, Japan Prof. Dr. Lev MANOVICH, University of California, San Diego, USA Prof. Dr. ZHANG Ga, The New School / Tsinghua University, US and China Prof. Dr. Barbara Maria STAFFORD, Georgia Institute of Technology, Atlanta, Ga.
Prof. em. Frank POPPER, University of Paris VIII, Paris, France Ass. Prof. Dr. Caitlin FISHER, York University, Toronto, Canada Dr. Michele BARKER, COFA, University of New South Wales, Sydney, Australia Andreas LANGE, Director of the Computerspielemuseum, Berlin, Germany Assoc. Prof. Nina CZEGLEDY, University of Toronto, Canada Prof. Paul Alsina GONZÁLEZ, Universitat Oberta de Catalunya, Spain Prof. Mikel ROTAECHE y GONZÁLEZ de Ubieta, Universidad Complutense de Madrid, Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía, Madrid, Spain Adj. Prof. Alessandro LUDOVICO, Academy of Art Carrara, Editor in chief of Neural magazine, Italy Dr. Vince DZIEKAN, Monash University, Melbourne, Australia Prof. Dr. Darren TOFTS, Swinburne University, Melbourne Australia Vanina HOFMAN, PhD; Universitat Oberta de Catalunya, Founder of Taxonomedia, Spain / Argentina Ass. Prof. Ianina PRUDENKO, National Pedagogical Dragomanov University, Kyiv, Ukraine.
Dr. Darko FRITZ, freelance curator, researcher and artist, Croatia / Netherlands Dr. Lisa GYE, Swinburne University, Melbourne, Australia Assoc. Prof. Dr. Anna MUNSTER, National Institute for Experimental Arts, Sydney, Australia Dr. Stephen JONES, Stephen Jones & Associates P/L (Video Conservation), Sydney, Australia.
Dr. Andy WILLIAMSON, Digital Strategist and Commentator, UK Dr. Nelson VERGARA, National University of Colombia, Bogota, Colombia Gabriela BALDOMÁ, Directora del Instituto de Investigación, Conservación y Restauración de Arte Moderno y Contemporáneo, Argentina Prof. Dr. Ryszard W. KLUSZCZYNSKI, University of Lodz, Poland Dr. Raivo KELOMEES, Estonian Academy of Arts, Tallinn, Estonia Dr. Mike LEGGETT, Creativity & Cognition Studios, University of Technology, Sydney Prof. Dr. Anne-Marie DUGUET, University of Paris 1, France Prof. Dr. Will STRAW, Department of Art History and Communications Studies, McGill University, Canada.
Steve DIETZ, President and Artistic Director of Northern Lights.mn, USA Dmitry BULATOV, Curator at the National Center for Contemporary Arts, Kaliningrad branch, Russia Prof. Dr. Gunalan NADARAJAN, Maryland Institute College of Art (MICA), Baltimore, USA Ass. Prof. Maurice BENAYOUN, University Paris 8, France Prof. Dr. Cleomar ROCHA, Universidade Federal de Goiás, Goiânia, Brasil Prof. Dr. Akihiro KUBOTA, Tama Art University, Tokyo, Japan Andres BURBANO, PhD researcher at the University of California, Santa Barbara, USA Eric KLUITENBERG, Chief of Tactical Media Files, Chelsea College of Art and Design, London Prof. Dr. Edward A. SHANKEN, University of Amsterdam, Netherlands Andreia MAGALHAES, PhD researcher at the Fine Arts Faculty, Porto, Portugal Prof. Dr. Felipe Cesar LONDOÑO, International Image Festival, University of Caldas, Colombia.
Prof. Dr. Timothy Conway MURRAY, Rose Goldsen Archiveof New Media Art, Cornell University, New York Prof. Dr. Douglas KAHN, National Institute forExperimental Arts, University of New South Wales, Sydney, Australia Ass. Prof. Dr. Baruch GOTTLIEB, transmediale, Germany Prof. Dr. Angel KALENBERG, Instituto Valenciano deArte Moderno (IVAM), Spain Rafael LOZANO-HEMMER B.Sc., Independent artist,Mexico, Madrid, Montreal Paul BROWN, visiting professor, Centre for Computational Neuroscience and Robotics, University of Sussex, UK Predrag RISTIC, Gradina FM, Member (Macedonia).
Patrick LICHTY, Critical Artist and Theorist, Columbia College Chicago Dr. Lewis KAYE, Sound artist; instructor, Dept. of Communication Studies, Wilfrid Laurier University, Waterloo, Canada Ass. Prof. Dejan GRBA, University of the Arts / Faculty of Fine Arts in Belgrade, Serbia Ass. Prof. Shane MECKLENBURGER, Art & Technology, The Ohio State University Dept of Art, Columbus, OH Dr. Martin E. ROSENBERG, Independent Scholar, Pittsburgh, PA USA Prof. Mariela CANTU, Researcher, Curator. Founder of Arca Video Argentino -On line Archive and Database of Argentinian Videoart-.
Universidad de La Plata/Universidad del Cine/Instituto Universitario Nacional del Arte.
Ass. Dir. Sherry Miller HOCKING, Experimental Television Center, Owego, NY, USA Prof. Pier Luigi CAPUCCI, NABA, Milan; NoemaLab, Italy Laura BERAZADI, Executive Director, InterAccess Electronic Media Arts Centre, Toronto, Canada Dr. Mikhail A. STEPANOV, Russian Institute for Cultural Research, St.
Petersburg, Russia
Dir. Helen SLOAN, SCAN, UK
Dr. Jussi PARIKKA, Winchester School of Art/University of Southampton Jennifer Kanary NIKOLOVA, Artist, Researcher and Tutor, Gerrit Rietveld Academie/University of Amsterdam Po-Wei WANG, Art Critic, Curator, Representative of the Digital Art Center, Taipei, Taiwan Prof. Dr. Anna Maria GUASCH, Universitat de Barcelona, Spain.
Dr. Clarissa RIBEIRO, Director of The Double Collective, researcher at ECA – USP / School of Communications and Arts, University of Sao Paulo, Brazil Dr. Dmitry GALKIN, Institute for Arts and Culture, Tomsk State University, Russia Assoc. Prof. Bent FAUSING, Aesthetics and Visual Communications in Modern Media, University of Copenhagen, Director of the international research program: Sensoric Image Science, Denmark Dr. Suzana MILEVSKA, Art historian and Curator, Faculty of Fine Arts, Skopje Dr. Melentie PANDILOVSKI, Director, Video Pool Media Arts Centre, Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada Nina SOSNA, Russian University for Humanities Dr. Karin WENZ, Director of studies MA Media Culture, Maastricht University Dr. Emmanuelle LOUBET, New Media artist, sound creator, programmer and web developer, researcher, Canada / Japan Dr. Mathias FUCHS, University Potsdam/ Germany and University of Salford , UK Dr. Annette FINNSDOTTIR, Campus Køge bei Køge Business School, Kopenhagen, Denmark Prof. Raquel HERRERA, freelance new media teacher, researcher and translator, IDEC-Universitat Pompeu Fabra, Spain Prof. Mario COSTA, Director, ARTMEDIA c / o University of Salerno-Italy, Italy Ed TANNENBAUM, Independent media Arstist, Crockett, US Karin KAROUSSOS, PhD Researcher and Independent Artist,Athens School of Fine Arts, Greek Natale CUCINIELLO, Media Artist – Torre del Greco, 1946, Italy Frank ANCEL, Independent Researcher, Paris, France Dr. Michael HOHL, Faculty of Art and Design, Bauhaus University Weimar Dr. Chris MEIGH-ANDREWS, School of Art, Design & Performance, University of Central Lancashire, Preston, UK Dragana ZAREVSKA, Visual and performing arts practitioner and researcher, Macedonia Dr. Vince BRIFFA, Head of Department of Digital Arts, University of Malta Gudrun BIELZ, Artist, visiting artist at the Royal Academy of Arts, London and PhD student University of Reading, UK.
Jens H. STRECK, computer scientist, University of Sussex, UK Marisa OLSON, Artist, State University of New York, Purchase College Prof. Simone MICHELIN, Coordinator Visual Arts/Sculpture, School of Fine Arts, Federal University of Rio de Janeiro Margit ROSEN, ZKM | Center for Art and Media Dr. Daniel GIFILLAN, Arizona State University